This is my personal blog. I was Branch Secretary of Lambeth UNISON from 1992 to 2017 and a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of UNISON, the public service union (www.unison.org.uk) from 2003 to 2017.
I am Chair of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour Party and of the Sussex Labour Representation Committee (LRC).
Neither the Labour Party nor UNISON is responsible for the contents of this personal blog. (Nor is my employer!)

Johnson’s plan
is clearly to set things up for a General Election in which he will seek to
stand for “people” against Parliament – but the actual mobilisation of the
people is taking place in opposition to his Government.

This
mobilisation offers the possibility of carrying forward the momentum of
opposition to prorogation into support for Labour’s socialist policies in a
General Election (and beyond that, into the mass popular mobilisation which
will be necessary if a socialist-led Labour Government is to be defended for
long enough to be able to do any good).

Labour
politicians calling for support for today’s protests are doing exactly the
right thing, as are the Labour Party members who are – as I write this – in the
streets of towns and cities up and down the country.

Johnson’s
audacious move in announcing the prorogation of Parliament won’t be the last
move from this reactionary Government, which is aiming at the twin goals of a
hard Brexit and a Tory majority in Parliament – and we need to be prepared to
respond with similar audacity and with agility if we are going to defeat our
enemies.

The movement which
has arisen in response to Johnson’s announcement is only beginning to unfold. Labour
Party activists can neither predict nor direct how the movement will develop –
but we can do all we can to win the respect, and therefore assume the
leadership, of this emerging movement.

To win respect
we must show respect – and we cannot build unity by lecturing any of those who
are coming out on to the streets. EU flags may – in truth – be as irrelevant to
the needs of the moment as SWP placards, but those who turn up with either are
an audience for our views. Whilst the movement which is developing is
(unavoidably) opposed to Brexit no one prepared to defend democracy can be (or
will be) turned away.

The anger which
has been sparked by the undemocratic Tory manoeuvre could now be focused into
support for an alternative (Labour) Government (and beyond that for social
transformation and constitutional change) – or it could dissipate and presage
no more than a decade of defensive struggles against the majority Tory
Government that is Johnson’s central objective.

Congratulations
to all those protesting today. This is only the beginning.

The objective
of the most reactionary Government of our lifetimes is to extract the UK
economy from the European Union in order to find a new role, subordinate to
Trump’s USA, as a low-tax, low-wage, low-regulation haven for global capital.

This presents
all manner of challenges. Those MPs who have spent the last three years
polishing their anti-Brexit credentials will need to decide whether to support
a motion of no confidence before the Government can achieve its goal.

Liberals and
Tory “rebels” will have to decide whether their opposition to a socialist-led interim
Government is more important than their opposition to a “no deal” Brexit.

Labour MPs (and
former Labour MPs) who – mistakenly – believe in “honouring the result” of the
2016 referendum will have to choose between petty nationalism and loyalty to
the Party which made them.

However, this
is not simply a matter for MPs. Parliamentary democracy does not exist because
of things which were said or done in the Palace of Westminster.

Parliamentarians
did not create our Parliamentary democracy, and cannot be relied upon to defend
it.

Our ancestors
fought for democracy, at Peterloo, and in the struggles of the Chartists and
Suffragettes.

What we need
from our Labour Party and movement (which is far far more than our
representation in Parliament) is not simply a motion of no confidence in
Johnson’s illegitimate Government, but a mass mobilisation – on the streets –
in defence of democracy.

This is about
much more than the UK’s membership of the EU – this is about defending
democracy in order to be able to defend the interests of our people. If we
haven’t heard a clear call from the top of the Party and the trade unions for a
mass mobilisation within days it will fall to local Labour Parties and trade
union branches to mobilise our members.

There is
something more than a little unappetising about how much disputes about the
selection of candidates in winnable seats, which are essentially contests about
individual political careers, take on the misleading appearance of disagreements
about political principle, but it’s hardly a new phenomenon.

It is because
this is a problem with a long history that I sympathise very much with comrades
in Vauxhall Labour Party who
have protested that their local democratic desire for an All Women
Shortlist (AWC) has been denied by the National Executive Council (NEC).

Whilst one
might think that it would be an easy matter for a local Party to ensure that
they selected a woman candidate if that was their wish, this would depend upon
there being a selection process in which local members could express their
views.

Those who
remember the imposition
of Kate Hoey by the NEC in 1989 will appreciate, however, why members in
Vauxhall are worried that a local Party saddled with an MP they didn’t select for
the past thirty years might end up in the same boat again if, as in 2017, the
NEC has to take over selecting candidates when a General Election is called.

The answer to
the dilemma confronting the Party, in Vauxhall and elsewhere, is surely to get
on with open democratic selection of candidates in every constituency
(including those with sitting Labour MPs).

For those of us
who don’t have a sitting Labour MP – and are not at the top of the list of target
seats – even we would still like to have a say about who our candidate will be.
There are thousands of loyal Labour Party members who are preparing to spend
several weeks campaigning for candidates across the whole country – not only in
seats we expect to hold or gain.

In 2017 we were
taken by surprise and it was understandable that candidates had to be selected –
and imposed – by the NEC. Since we have been watching this General Election
approach for months now it would be much less understandable if we were to deny
our mass membership their democratic right to choose candidates at constituency
level again.